Hello everyone and welcome to ZaunCast's guide of Xin Zhao jungle.

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Pros:

+Strong early game ganks
+High Damage without building it
+Good CC amount
+Ultimate that can turn team-fights
+Good sustain in Jungle thanks to Battle Cry

Cons:

-No natural escape
-Vulnerable to CC

Marks:

For marks I take 3x Greater Mark of attack damage.

As well as taking 6x Greater Mark of attack speed.

This combination grants me a quicker clear time early on and combined with the attack damage from my quintessences the attack damage of a long sword at level 1.

Seals:

For Seals I take 9x Greater Seal of Armor, these just help increase your survivability in the jungle.

Glyphs:

9x Greater Glyph of Magic Resistance just gives you the early magic resistance to shake off some of the damage their AP champs can throw at you.

Quintessences:

For Quintessences I prefer picking 3x Greater Quintessence of attack damage like said early they give me a "free" long sword stat-wise.

For masteries I prefer going 9/21/0 This is, in my opinion, one of the tankiest mastery pages you can get while also brining some damage to it thanks to deadliness& weapon expertise.

The reason why I don't pick up "legendary armor" in defense is because it only gives you the 5% on your BONUS armor and magic resistance which isn't a lot. Let's take this build for example, with the late-game items you have 160total armor-83base armor that Xin Zhao has at level 18 leaves you with 77bonus armor 5% of this is just +3.85 armor, give me the 15% extra tenacity of tenacious all day over 4armor.

Starting Items:

-Hunter's Machete
This just increases your clear time early on and builds into Spirit of the Elder Lizard later on.

-5x HP pots
These just help you to sustain better in the jungle at early levels.

Early-game:

-Spirit Stone
This item gives you some nice hp&mana regeneration so you don't need HP pots anymore and also goes on to build into Spirit of the Elder Lizard.

-Mercury's Treads
These boots just help you out so much reducing their CC by 50% with tenacious in your mastery page.

-Sight ward
Buy a ward, save a life.
Use the ward to ward up a lane that isn't warded at the moment or ward up the jungle or global objectives like dragon with it, more information about this I will show in the "jungling" chapter.

Mid-Game:

-Spirit of the Elder Lizard
This is the only pure damage item in this build which also has a built-in red buff allowing your carry or top in the team to take the red buff so that two people on your team have it as well as providing some good attack damage and cooldown reduction along the way.

-Locket of the Iron Solari
This Item gives you some good HP&armor while also giving you the ability to shield your entire team and just helps you survive.

-Warmog's Armor
This item just boosts your HP even more and also increases your HP regeneration helping you to stay alive longer and become a scary person to face.

Late-Game:

-Runic Bulwark
Some People think that the Support should buy this item but I disagree with that since this item is very expensive and is about 50-60% of the support's total gold in an average match. This item just again helps you become more tanky while also granting your team a nice aura.

-Captain Enchantment
How often did it happen to you that you engage but your team is too slow to follow up and you die?
This enchantment just gives your team the ability to follow you up better.

6th Item Choices:

-Randuin's Omen
This item I pick up when I face a team that is very dependent on attack speed or have a majority of AD damage and the active of this just allows you to really stick onto your enemies.

-Spirit Visage
This Item I pick up when I face teams with the majority of AP damage this also puts you on the 40% cooldown reduction and increases the heal on your Battle Cry.

Full build? Don't forget these:

The Oracle just helps you clear all the vision they got while the Elixir gives you some more damage and health.

ALOT of people downvote or question me because I build the Spirit of the Elder Lizard, so this chapter will explain why now exactly I choose to built a spirit stone(Spirit of the Elder Lizard) and not a Madred's(wriggle's lantern.

First off let's compare the first item that build into these:
Spirit Stone
+14 HP5
+7 MP5
Passive:
Butcher- Damage dealt to monsters is increased by 20%
Rend- Basic attacks deal 10 True damage against monsters
Item cost(total):
700 gold

Madred's Razors
+25Armor
Passive:
Rend- Basic attacks deal 10 true damage against monsters
Maim- Attacks against minions and monsters have a 25% chance to deal 300 bonus magic damage.
Item cost(total):
700 gold

So like you can see both items cost the same and got the "Rend" passive, Since both cost the same you will most likely get one of them around lv.4-5, at lv.4 Xin Zhao's base HP regen=9,8 which means that the +14 would buff this rating by over 100% while also providing +20% damage against monsters ontop of the 10true damage the 20% would be:
Base attack damage lv.4= 65,2AD
Deadliness at lv.4= 2,5656AD
AD from runes= 9,6AD
Total AD level 4= 77,3AD
the Blue&red buff have 20Armor which reduces physical damage taken by 16%
Damage without Spirit stone:
77,3/100*(100-16%)=65 Damage
Damage with Spirit stone:
65/100*120=78 Damage

Conclusion:
every strike(at lv.4) deals 13more Physical damage ontop of the true damage.
where the 25% chance of dealing 300damage seems more viable at early levels, the spirit stone gets stronger each level.

Madred's razoer increases your armor by 25 which means at lv.4 your armor would be:
Xin Zhao's Base armor:30
Armor from runes:13
Armor from masteries:2
Total armor: 45
Damage multiplier = 100 / (100 + Armor) if Armor ≥ 0
putting 45Armor into this formula means that on lv.4 you take 31% reduced damage without it.
+25Armor of Madred's would mean on lv.4 you take 41% reduced damage with Madred's
the blue&red buff have 65(+1.825 per min) attack damage so they would deal the following damage to you:
Without Madreds:
65/100*(100-31)=45 Damage
With Madreds:
65/100*(100-41)=38 Damage

Conclusion:
With Madreds the red&blue buff(at lv.4) would deal 7 less damage.

Now let's compare the items they build into:
Spirit of the Elder Lizard
+45 Attack Damage
+14 HP5
+7 MP5
+10% CDR
Passive:
Butcher- Damage dealt to monsters is increased by 25%
Incinerate- basic attacks and spells that don't deal Damage over time deal 6-40 bonus true damage over 3seconds on hit.
Item cost(total):
2000 gold

Wriggle's Lantern
+30 Armor
+15 Attack Damage
+10% Lifesteal
Passive:
Maim- Basic attacks have a 25% chance to deal 500addional magic damage.
Active:
Places a Sight Ward at target location(3min cooldown).
Item cost(total):
1600 gold

Now the Wriggle's Lantern is 400gold Cheaper and comes with a handy ward, where on first sight the Elder Lizard doesn't seem all to spectaculair, however Elder Lizard grants you 30more attack damage.

Let's assume you can get both these items at lv.10
at this point Xin zhao's base stats that would get affected by these items are the following:
Attack Damage: 52+(10*3,3)=85
Health Regen: 7+(0,7*10)=14
Mana Regen: 6,6+(0,45*10)=11,1
Cooldown reduction: 0%
Armor: 16+(3,5*10)=35
Lifesteal: 0%

% increase stats Elder Lizard:
Attack damage:
85=100%
85+45=130
130/85*100%=152,94%
52,94% more Attack damage
Health Regen:
14=100%
14+14=28
28/14*100%=200%
100% more Health regen
Mana regen:
11,1=100%
11,1+7=18,1
18,1/11,1*100%=163,06%
63,06% more Mana regen
Cooldown Reduction:
10% more Cooldown Reduction
Total % increase Elder Lizard:
226/4(amount of stats)= average stat increase of 56,6%

% increase stats Wriggle's Lantern:
Attack Damage:
85=100%
85+15=100 Attack Damage
100/85*100%=117,64%
17,64% more Attack Damage
Armor:
35=100%
35+30=65
65/30*100=216,66%
106,66% more Armor
Lifesteal:
10% more Lifesteal
Total % Increase Wriggle's Lantern:
134,3/3(amount of stats)= average stat increase of 44,76%

Conclusion:
Elder Lizard boosts the average stat by 11,84% more compared to Lantern.

I think I have given enough reasons myself to explain this choice if you still believe now that Elder Lizard is a bad choice and I didn't convince you....then maybe TheOddone himself will:This screenshot was taken on his stream today(2/06/13).

This picture shows you the basic Jungle route which I would recommend you to follow as Xin Zhao.
But always pay attention to lanes for opportunities to gank. I wouldn't recommend to gank before level 3, just wait until you have all your abilities.

Jungle Spawn timers:

Just for the people who want to know the exact timers:

Wraiths Spawn time - 1:40 Respawn timer - 0:50
Wolves Spawn time - 1:40 Respawn timer - 1:00
Golems Spawn time - 1:40 Respawn timer - 1:00
Blue Buff Spawn time - 1:55 Respawn timer - 5:00
Red Buff Spawn time - 1:55 Respawn timer - 5:00
Dragon Spawn time - 2:30 Respawn timer - 6:00 Gives global 190g and 400 exp
Baron Spawn time - 15:00 Respawn timer - 7:00 Gives global 300g and 900 exp

Warding:

Like I said earlier in this guide, it's important to ward. So, where to ward?
I always set myself these priorities;

1.Ward a lane for your team if it isn't warded yet.

2.Ward dragon if your support didn't do this, or even baron later on.

3.Ward the brush behind the enemies red buff, this is a frequently taken route by Mid laners and
junglers to help out another lane.

This is the most important and deciding part of every match, so you want these to go well for your team.

Start of a team fight:

Most of the time, the first team-fights will start around the 15min mark. At this stage of the game, you should already have some decent resistances&health to soak up some damage for your team. Try to get your team to come together as 5 and start pressuring objectives like dragon, Baron&turrets.

When you feel confident that you can win the exchange, don't be afraid to lead the way for your team with Audacious Charge and use your ultimate on as many people as possible.

What happens with this are 2 things:

1.Their team gets split up because of the push-back from Crescent Sweep.

2.You already take a chunk of their hp with it since it deals a % of their current health and when you can get it down onto people that are close to full hp, which is normal at a start of a team-fight, it can really turn the fight in your teams favor.

The actual fight:

Now your team should focus down one of their carries who is split from his team thanks to your Crescent sweep. Your job now is to keep their damage away from your carries while also locking up people for your team. It's hard at times to find the balance between these two, because of course you want to keep your carry alive so he can maximize his damage but you also don't want their carry to slip away. The risk however, is if you chase too deep, you split your team up yourself leaving it vulnerable, so you should always watch your team when you make your decision on what to do.

After a team-fight:

Team-fight won:

-Take advantage of the fact that the enemy team can't defend certain objectives and take them. Make sure to prioritize turrets&inhibitors over Barons&dragons.

Team-fight lost:

-If you are still alive, don't do anything stupid. Your opponent has the advantage right now. If the turret only has 200hp left, let it go and don't give them a free kill. Just try to defend objectives as well as possible without putting yourself in risk of getting killed.

-If you are dead, DON'T flame your team for a lost team-fight. You can still come back into this game and try to turn it around. Flaming only demotivates your team even more and increases the chances that you lose.

In the video below you can hear some commentary from Xykin when he was playing Xin Zhao in a ranked match. Maybe this will help you to understand the things we just typed a little better. Play Video
Later on we will also release a sort of champion spotlight of Xin Zhao jungle with this build.

Closing words:

If you are still reading by now it probably means that we did our job with this guide. :D

We'll try to keep this guide updated as well as providing some more guides with the videos.
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Thanks for reading this guide. We hope you learned something from this and good luck in your upcoming League matches.

2/06/13:
-Updated masteries.
-Added chapter "Why do I pick Elder Lizard over Lantern" chapter.